The illegal alien accused of murdering 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts last year has racked up a bill thus far of about $22,000 in costs for taxpayers.

In August 2018, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, was charged with Tibbetts’ murder after police said he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman.

Following a nationwide search, Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield in Poweshiek County, Iowa. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and worked on a dairy farm using a stolen ID and Social Security card after allegedly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as a child.

Since the prosecution’s case began against Bahena Rivera, Breitbart News analysis finds the illegal alien has racked up a more than $22,000 bill for which Iowa taxpayers must pay.

The latest figures obtained by KCCI 8 Des Moines reveal that about $1,397 worth of interpreter services have been billed in addition to the roughly $12,485 that taxpayers have paid to an interpreter for Bahena Rivera as of March 1, 2019.

On top of these fees, taxpayers had to pay $5,000 in September 2018 to provide Bahena Rivera with expert investigators to help him fight the murder charges, as well as $3,200 to pay for an expert witness.

In total, the cost to taxpayers so far provided to Bahena Rivera amounts to at least $22,082.

Last year, more than 200 American taxpayers sent letters to the court saying that illegal aliens living in the U.S. do not have constitutional rights and therefore should not be awarded taxpayer money to pay for their defense.

Bahena Rivera’s attorneys have sought for months to suppress his alleged murder confession and have it thrown out of the case before the trial begins on November 12. Most recently, they said Bahena Rivera’s “Constitutional rights” were violated when police questioned him.

Already, Bahena Rivera successfully got his trial date pushed back and moved his trial to a less white, more Hispanic-populated county in the state. His defense team argued that only a more Hispanic-populated region of Iowa would be able to fairly judge the murder trial.

According to prosecutors, Bahena Rivera was the last person who saw Tibbetts jogging on the evening of July 18 in Brooklyn, Iowa. That is the night Tibbetts went missing.

Bahena Rivera, according to police, said Tibbetts was jogging when he saw her. That is when he said he approached Tibbetts and started talking to her. After Tibbetts told Bahena Rivera that she would call the police if he did not stop following her, the illegal alien allegedly chased her and says he “blacked out” after this.

Police believe Bahena Rivera stabbed Tibbetts to death, then drove to a cornfield where prosecutors say he placed cornstalks over her to hide her body. The illegal alien has been held on a $5 million bond.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.